Traditional vehicular seats, namely those seats employed by transit system buses and coaches, are often comprised of a hard material such as fiberglass or high-impact synthetic resins and plastics. These materials are often employed due to their resilient nature. In particular, they are not vulnerable to destruction from intentional vandalism or high-volume commuter wear and tear. Furthermore, seats of this construction are also easily maintained in that they may be readily scrubbed with harsh abrasives to remove stains and markings, without obvious damage to the seat's finish.
However, while seats of this construction are easily maintainable, they tend to fail to provide even the slightest level of comfort to a commuter seated thereupon. They are cold during the winter and hot during the summer. The rigid construction can cause upper and lower back pains after short periods of time, as well as discomfort to the user's buttocks and thighs. The passenger can easily slide across and even off of the seat during sudden starts and stops.
A seating surface which employs softer and more cushioned seating surfaces is needed. Unfortunately, equipping commuter bus or coach seats with a more flexible and soft supple cloth-like material, as is often used in small passenger vehicles, is not feasible since these types of seats are easily damaged, cut, and marred. Replacing an entire such seat assembly in response to damage, cutting or marring is extremely cost prohibitive. Accordingly, a device or system is needed which permits a commuter bus or coach seat to provide comfort to a user, without all of the problems inherent in the systems mentioned above.
As a result, seating inserts and panels are commonly employed to provide a comfortable, yet vandalism proof structure. However, with the ubiquitous use of seating inserts in buses, trains, and other public transportation vehicles throughout the country, a new difficulty has emerged—the problem of unauthorized removal of the inserts themselves. In addition to loss from theft, since the inserts are often made of hard plastic or metal, some municipalities are concerned that a passenger might pry one up from the seat frame and use it to harm other passengers. Consequently, many cities and municipalities now mandate that the inserts are fastened securely to the seat, and made tamperproof, in an attempt to prevent their unauthorized removal by a passenger. The result of their efforts to make them tamperproof, however, is that the inserts are also difficult and time consuming to remove by authorized personnel.
The conventional way of securing the inserts to a seat frame and ensuring they cannot be removed, is to employ six to eight metal straps, each held to the seat frame by two screws each, to ensure the inserts cannot be removed. As a result, it can easily take a mechanic 15-30 minutes to remove a single pair of inserts. Thus, replacing and reconditioning a transit vehicle with new inserts can take days and cost thousands of dollars in labor alone.
While these units may be suitable for the particular purpose employed, or for general use, they would not be as suitable for the purposes of the present disclosure as disclosed hereafter. A need therefore exists for a seating unit which not only prevents the unauthorized removal of inserts or panels, but also allows a mechanic to quickly install or remove the inserts or panels with minimal usage of tools, significantly reducing the time and cost required to replace or recondition the seating on a transit vehicle.
In the present disclosure, where a document, act or item of knowledge is referred to or discussed, this reference or discussion is not an admission that the document, act or item of knowledge or any combination thereof was at the priority date, publicly available, known to the public, part of common general knowledge or otherwise constitutes prior art under the applicable statutory provisions; or is known to be relevant to an attempt to solve any problem with which the present disclosure is concerned.
While certain aspects of conventional technologies have been discussed to facilitate the present disclosure, no technical aspects are disclaimed and it is contemplated that the claims may encompass one or more of the conventional technical aspects discussed herein.